Connecting growth mindset and job satisfaction

I haven't recorded an episode in a while, even though I'm still reading Carol Dweck's book Mindset. I haven't recorded an episode mostly because the chapters that I've been going through, nothing really stood out to me. Which is not to say that I'm not absorbing the book, but there's nothing that doesn't... basically, let me put it a different way. Basically, what I've been reading recently is a lot of stories and examples, and the stories and examples don't lead to much fodder for discussing in an episode.

But today, something interesting happened. I made a connection between the Growth Mindset and a book that I read recently called Born For This by Chris... I'm going to butcher his last name, but Guilbeau, Guilbeau, Guilbeau, Guilbeau. And that book is about basically finding your ideal job, which isn't necessarily what I thought it was about when I bought it. I thought it was about finding your purpose in life, and it is framed in that way, but really when it comes down to it, it's kind of a practical guide for finding your dream job or dream career.

Anyways, the connection between the two, there is a kind of a Venn diagram that he provides in the book of three things that need to overlap for you to really be happy in a career or a job. One of those things he calls flow, and I say he calls because flow is a term that's used in psychology and in many other places, to be honest. He uses it a little bit differently. For him, flow is about the feeling that comes from being good at something, that you feel good when you are good at something. And this is one of the three main motivators that we want. Nobody wants a job where you suck at your job. You're not going to be satisfied in that.

And it occurred to me today that when you are in a job where you find yourself not good at it, this happens a lot to people when they begin a job. They haven't quite mastered all the skills of it. It can make you begin to not want to go to work because it makes you start to feel bad about yourself because your job begins to serve as a reminder of your shortcomings.

And how this ties to the fixed mindset and the growth mindset that Carol Dweck is talking about is this is a fixed mindset perspective. You're seeing your shortcomings and you're seeing them as permanent. Whereas the growth mindset would see this as a challenge, something that they're eager to take on. Say, oh, I've found a place where I can improve something that I'm not good at.

So when you stay in the fixed mindset, you continually say, this shortcoming that I have, this ignorance, this lack of knowledge that I have, this lack of skill that I have at this current moment is the judgment of me and who I am. It's not that I'm not good at this, is I'm not good, is what it translates to. So you begin to hate your work because it's telling you every day in your mind that you suck.

But with the growth mindset, you see it as a challenge and a way to improve. So you see yourself basically on stairs or a ladder, you're moving up, you're moving towards something, and that can transform that same situation into something that you're eager to take on. To step into and maybe not always even eager, but something that you're willing to step into.

And I find this really interesting because if like me, you come from a fixed mindset, when you're in a situation where you're faced with exactly what I'm talking about, it's very hard to pull yourself out of the fixed mindset because it's your defensive position. It's what you fall back into. So it's not an easy thing to switch the mindsets, but I just thought that was an interesting correlation between flow and the growth mindset.